I must not neglect the clergy. Here the leading case is obviously that of Dr. Dodd, hanged for forgery (June 27, 1777). The strange ups and down of his life (“he descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper”) are not for this page. The maudlin piety of his last days is no pleasant spectacle. Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol, thought him deserving of pity “because hanged for the least crime he had committed.” Dr. Samuel Johnson did all he could to save him; also wrote his address to the judge (sentence had been respited) in reply to the usual question, as well as the sermon he delivered in Newgate Chapel three weeks before the end. The King sternly refused a reprieve. No doubt he was right. The very manner of the deed seems to argue not a first, only a first discovered, offence. His doggerel _Thoughts in Prison_ is his chief literary crime. He went in a coach. His “considerable time in praying,” and “several showers of rain,” rendered the mob somewhat impatient. He was assisted by two clergymen. One was very much affected; “the other, I suppose, was the Ordinary, as he was perfectly indifferent and unfeeling in everything he said and did.” Villette was then Ordinary. He wrote an account (after the most approved pattern) of Dodd’s unhappy end. The pair had spent much time together in Newgate, and one hopes the report of Villette’s behaviour is mistaken or inaccurate, though it is that of an eye-witness, a correspondent of George Selwyn himself an enthusiastic amateur of executions, who, when he had a tooth drawn, let fall his handkerchief _à la Tyburn_, as a signal for the operation. James Boswell had a like craze. He went in a mourning coach with the Rev. James Hackman when that divine was hanged (April 19, 1779) for the murder of Miss Reay. When Hackman let fall the handkerchief for signal it fell _outside_ the cart, and Ketch with an eye to small perquisites jumped down to secure it _before_ he whipped up the horse. These are all names more or less known. There are hundreds of curious incidents connected with obscure deaths. Here are a few samples:--In 1598 “some mad knaves took tobacco all the way as they went to be hanged at Tyburn.” In 1677, a woman and “a little dog ten inches high” were hanged side by side as accomplices--“a hideous prospect,” comments our chronicler. In 1684 Francis Kirk, having murdered his wife, must end at Tyburn. Shortly before he had seen a fellow hanged there for making away with _his_ spouse; and this, he confessed, had inspired him!